Following the collapse of a 60-foot portion of the bluff on Forest Park, Lake Forest officials have shut off access to the park’s northern entrance and the accompanying ravine indefinitely.

After record rainfall amounts in May and June, city officials believe 2.25 inches of rain came down on June 27, the majority within a one-hour period, resulting in over-saturation of the bluff in the area, causing it to fail.

It was something Bob Kiely had never seen in his run as the city manager.

“In 27 years, we never had a mudslide in Lake Forest,” Kiely said at Monday’s city council meeting. “It was quite a mudslide.”

Public works director Michael Thomas reported there were no injuries or damaged homes or cars, but due to the collapse, the city closed the area, as well as the wooden boardwalk on the southern end of Forest Park.

“It is flat-out dangerous and we don’t want people walking on it,” Thomas said of the boardwalk. “The bluff has not failed in that area, but we are keeping a close eye on it.”

At the city council meeting, council members unanimously agreed to a staff recommendation pursuing a design/build approach in one action as opposed to the traditional bidding where the process would roll out in stages.

“That saves a heck of a lot of time compared to the usual design and bid process,” Thomas said.

Thomas pointed out the area needs to be regraded to prevent further incidents from occurring again.

“When we look at that bluff and we look at that ravine, we are concerned there is going to continue to be significant erosion and bluff failures,” Thomas said.

Thomas stated that by taking this route, the area could be repaired by late fall and a contract for construction could be placed in front of the city council at its July 16 meeting.

He added they are working with an estimated price tag of $1.4 million, but that could change.

Thomas said staff knowledge of the industry and its pricing methods should prevent excess costs.

“We assume we will pay a little bit of a premium, but it should not be that significantly higher because we know what unit prices are,” Thomas said.

Thomas added there would be a similar design approach to what was used at the South Beach Access Road in the late fall of 2017, which he said was very close to collapsing at the time.

The fear of a catastrophic event was on the minds of council members.

“What you worry about is this kind of thing happening again,” said Ald. Prue Beidler, 1st. “We’ve been incredibly lucky.”

With the road closures, the city has announced parking would be allowed on both the upper south and lower south parking lots for Lake Forest residents only. Parking will also be available for residents on Deerpath’s south side between Washington and Sheridan roads, on Westminster Road between Sheridan and Lake roads, and the north campus of Lake Forest College, according to Sally Swarthout, the city’s director of parks, recreation and forestry.

Swarthout said police would be ticketing cars of nonresidents parked in the designated area of Lake Forest College. She encouraged nonresidents to park at the east side train station lots on weekend days.

There will still be handicapped parking at the lower level south lot until it reaches capacity and those with handicapped placards or license plates may be dropped off at the lower level south lot, Swarthout said.

In addition to the parking changes, there will be two golf carts used to get people from the south lot to the swimming beach on the north side, Swarthout said.

“This will be a moving target all summer long,” Swarthout added. “But we will hit it.”